18. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to-day?

19. And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

20. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.

21. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

22. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

23. And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

24. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

MOSES having fled from Goshen, entered the land of Midian, again directed, not by fear, but by faith, for the apostle to the Hebrews says, "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible."

And there, while seated, as we are told in the preceding verses, by the side of a well, probably wearied by his journey, he is witness to an act of

cowardly oppression, which, with his strong feelings of indignant hatred of injustice, he cannot see without interference. He therefore drives away the idle shepherds who were evidently in the habit of compelling their weaker female companions to wait until the men's flocks were watered, before they permitted them to approach for a similar purpose; and having done this, Moses himself draws water for the flocks of the women. This one act of kindness, trifling as it appears, gives a colouring to the whole of his future life it causes him to become the guest, and finally the son-in-law, of Reuel, and for forty years to employ himself in the quiet and meditative occupation of tending his father-in-law's flock in the desert. Here, again, how strikingly do we behold the hand of a superintending Providence arranging even the minutest circumstances in the lives of his instruments! Who shall dare to pronounce what is accident, and what is design! Was it accident that Moses rested himself at that particular well? Yet, surely, it was no accident that he became a keeper of sheep for forty years in the desert. But who can separate the one from the other, the cause from the effect? Let it teach us then to acknowledge a particular providence in the smallest mercies of our daily lives; let it lead us to make all and each a sub

ject of prayer and praise; let it convince us that nothing is too trifling, too insignificant for the cognizance of that Being, without whom, not a sparrow falleth, and by whom the very hairs of our heads are numbered.

For forty years, had Moses dwelt amidst the refinement and luxuries of a court, and obtained there all that he needed of wisdom and learning, and knowledge of human life and of human nature, to qualify him for the wonderful and important position he was at some future day to occupy. But valuable as these acquirements were, they were not all that was needed; there was much that could be learnt only in solitude ; much of the nature and attributes of God, and of his own soul, of which Moses might have remained profoundly ignorant, but which were quite as necessary to endow him for his high emprize, as the greatest depths of worldly wisdom or scientific research. May we never forget, that human learning, valuable though it be, can never, if alone, qualify us for the service of our Maker! There must be hours of study of the revealed word; of thoughtful, prayerful meditation; of absolute withdrawal even from the innocent and praiseworthy occupations of the world, if we would attain to any high degree the church of the Redeemer.

of usefulness in

It is then, and

then only, that we learn rightly, although, alas! how imperfectly, to know either God or ourselves. The world, when seen from a distance, appears for the first time in its true dimensions, and has no longer the exaggerated charms and glories with which, while closely engaged in it, we are so apt to invest it; and we are enabled, when thus temporarily removed from it, to see something of its exceeding emptiness and worthlessness and vanity; and thus, if we persevere in prayer, fully following out these true and holy impressions, we may be led, by the grace given unto us, to renounce its sovereignty, to shake off its chains, and to rejoice in the glorious liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free.

EXPOSITION VII.

EXODUS iii. 1-6.

1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-inlaw, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

2. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked,

с

and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

3. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

4. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

5. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

6. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

THE second term of forty years of preparation in the life of Moses was now drawing to a close. How it had been employed, beyond the mere pastoral occupations in which we have seen him engaged, is not revealed to us; although its fruits are no doubt visible, in the peculiar holiness and meekness which so strongly predominated in his character, during the remainder of his life, and which form so striking and singular a contrast to the indignant impatience of oppression and fiery zeal which marked his opening years. His long and solitary communings with the God of his fathers, his many days of anxiety and nights of watchfulness, his entire seclusion from the strivings of his fellow-men, had all, no doubt, greatly tended